Tag Archives: share

by

lair

alone and sad
lurk in your lair
information
rotting there

you say you read
what I write
but not what or when
or day or night

collect words
webbing glue
word mummies
stick to you

you don’t connect
you don’t share
you say you never
never care

your web is touched
vibrates fast
fangs extend
webbing cast

you bite your victim
in spite of screams
anesthetize
steal their dreams

I ask questions
you scold me coldly
I break the web
fight poison boldly

read my words
as you will
I’ve escaped your web
as others will

your web is old
you’re growing slow
your poison fails
your victims know

you end alone
sag sagging web
your victims glad
when you are dead

___________________________

A second darker take on the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dream world.

by

Vape

First, the definition of vapor:

noun

  1. The gaseous state of a substance that is liquid or solid at room temperature.
  2. A faintly visible suspension of fine particles of matter in the air, as mist, fumes, or smoke.
  3. A mixture of fine droplets of a substance and air, as the fuel mixture of an internal-combustion engine.

So vaping is smoking. It can be called vaping, but that is to trick us into thinking that it is not smoking, that we are not sucking chemicals into our delicate lung tissue. We only have one set of lungs. Lungs are like a tree, either the roots or the leaf parts upside down. Air is drawn in by our muscles expanding the chest and diaphragm, down the trachea, the bronchi, the bronchioles and at last to the alveoli, where tiny veins wrap each alveoli, trading carbon dioxide for oxygen.

I think of smoking as every cigarrette distroying an alveolus.

Vaping too, vaping is smoking. The nicotine is suspended in a solution and the vaporizer heats up until it is in vapor form. I started reading about vaporizers at least a decade ago. There were over 500 different types, mostly made in China, and there are all sorts of solutions. I was horrified to read that ethylene glycol was one of the solutions that held nicotine. When a dog drinks antifreeze, ethylene glycol, it is poisonous to the brain. Does anyone think that we should inhale smoke with antifreeze and nicotine in it? Really?

There is no control of what is put in the solutions. We don’t know what they will do long term but we know that nicotine is addictive and damages the lungs. Some of the vaporizers get so hot that the metal is also vaporized. Heavy metals are clearly bad for the lungs and poisonous as well.

Here is an article from the U of Colorado Medical Center with further reasons NEVER to start vaping. Because vaping is smoking: don’t let the term fool YOU. 4 reasons why you should stop vaping.

For the RDP: vapor.

by

city versus country

A friend comments that the country used to outnumber the city folk but now it’s the other way around, and that the split in our country is about values.

Hmmm. I am thinking about that. I am a city girl AND I am a country girl, both. We moved every 1-5 years and I was in cities and in the country. However, my family also had two anchor points. My mother’s family has shacks on a lake in Ontario, summer shacks. My father’s parents had a house on the beach in North Carolina on the outer banks. Wind and water in both places and we never watched tv in either place, because we were outside until we fell exhausted into a tent or into bed.

I don’t agree with my friend. I think we ALL share some values: that no one should go in a school and shoot kids, or a church and shoot people, or a store and shoot people. Right? We all agree on that if we are sane. That is a starting point. I read the mediation books when my (now ex-) husband was getting certified. The mediators start by trying to find the common ground.

I am pretty much equally comfortable in my small town, the woods, on the water and in cities. My friend warned me about Seattle being dangerous now. Well, it’s a matter of scale. I went to high school in Alexandria, Virginia and I lived at 3rd and Massachusetts in Washington, DC back in the 1980s. I was pretty careful just walking to the metro in that part of Washington at that time. I pay attention in Seattle, but in these cities I know what I am paying attention to. I ended up alone on a metro car once at night. A man got on at the next stop, looked around the car, grinned and came and sat next to me. I thought, oh, Sh-t, this is not good. I ignored him and continued staring at my book.

“Hi, what’s your name?” he says.

“I am reading.” I say coolly.

“Come on, honey,” he says.

I shut the book, stand up, and he lets me pass. I stand by the metro door until the next stop, get off that car and get on another car with more people. The car did have emergency alarms, so I could have hit one, but he let me by so I didn’t. I was kicking myself for being alone on the car, but honestly: what a stupid nasty male chauvinist threatening jerk. I shouldn’t have to worry about this crap. But after that, I didn’t get lost in a book on the metro because I had to pay attention to avoid being alone on a car. Annoying as can be.

My friend says he gets lost in cities. I don’t. I start building a map in my head when I arrive in a new city. It is completely automatic. If I am driving, it’s based on the highway. If it’s by airplane, it includes the airport, the hotel, the conference center. I have been to San Antonio once, but I stayed at a hotel along the River Walk and the conference center was towards the center and south. I could draw part of the city, still. I love maps!

I can’t say that I would be comfortable if dropped in a city in another country, necessarily. I was pretty happy on my trip in March, which was abroad. There are levels of familiar and what are the languages in common? Are there any?

What are these values that people might be split on? I read that people are polarized and can’t get along, but I don’t agree. I did Family Medicine in this town of 9000 for 21 years, and I had people from town, from the county and eventually from three other counties. I had nine people who had to take a ferry to see me. Talk about inconvenient for them. My people are all races, all genders, age zero to 104, all different stripes of politics. I don’t care what their politics are: I am there to see if I can maintain or improve their health. This could mean anything from encouraging exercise, doing a pap smear, diagnosing diabetes to discussing hospice and end of life issues or telling someone that I do not think they are safe to drive. This is not about “pleasing” people: recognizing opioid overuse in a person does not endear me to them. But it is about doing the best I can for people and with people. And isn’t that a value we all share too?

Now we have common ground, two areas to stand. Grow that space. Peace me, work for justice and kindness and peace to you.

by

all blue

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chores.

I am not blue about chores. Not at all. I like chores. Being an independent stubborn woman, I don’t do them in the order or way that society currently seems to think we should do them. I do them in the order I think is important.

I was divorced in 2007, with a 14 year old and a 9 year old. My Ex promptly left town. He stayed in very close touch with the kids, calling about 5 out of 7 days, but did not see them for a year. I was working full time and had over night call.

My goal was that the kids would both know how to do lots of basic chores by the time they left home. Vacuum. Sweep. Clean the bathroom. Do laundry. Replace lightbulbs. Cook. Grocery shop. Plan a meal. Change a tire. Check the oil in each of our cars. We have a 1986 Honda Civic 5 speed, so include drive a clutch. Avoid debt and some basic money handling. Discuss insurance: car insurance, health insurance, others. I started turning over the responsibility for their own health care, dental, vision as well. I want them to know the family medical history and we discussed addictive substances and politics and justice. When my son was in college they asked for cell phones for Christmas. I asked them to research phones and a family plan and said, yes, I would do that. They did a great job bringing me the information. I wanted them to disagree with me as well. If they wanted to do something, they could argue their case and might convince me. I did not hire someone to do our household chores because running a household is work, honorable work, undervalued, and underappreciated. And expensive if you hire people to do all of it.

Both of my kids are much neater than me. Less packrat. At least, they are now… I think it’s a late expressing gene….

I took the photograph two days ago, on a walk in the evening. All blue.

by

reminder

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: timely.

My mother died in 2000 and my father in 2013 and my house is full of art. My mother was a prolific artist and I am working on placing, gifting, cataloging her art. There is rather more than I’d seen. Watercolors and etchings were her most loved, I think, though she did woodcuts, silk screen, oils, pottery and all sorts of crafts.

She did tiny etchings, often 2 by 2 or 2 by 3 inches of fantasy creatures.


Etching of Winged Hare, by Helen Ottaway
Winged Hare by H. Ottaway
etching: Dolphin, by Helen Ottaway
Dolphin, by H. Ottaway
by

class

For the Daily Prompt: laughter.

A class on public speaking at the Rotary District 5020 meeting last Friday… a wonderful class!

Who knew that there are over 35,000 Rotary Clubs world wide with people working on ending polio, clean water, efficient and inexpensive stoves, projects locally and internationally? And having fun too….